Donald Miller Prayer

Here is the text from Donald Miller's prayer at the Democratic National Convention a couple days ago (disclaimer: Convergence is not endorsing a particular candidate or party; we just like the prayer :-) )

"Father God,

This week, as the world looks on, help the leaders in this room create a civil dialogue about our future.

We need you, God, as individuals and also as a nation.

We need you to protect us from our enemies, but also from ourselves, because we are easily tempted toward apathy.

Give us a passion to advance opportunities for the least of these, for widows and orphans, for single moms and children whose fathers have left.

Give us the eyes to see them, and the ears to hear them, and hands willing to serve them.

Help us serve people, not just causes. And stand up to specific injustices rather than vague notions.

Give those in this room who have power, along with those who will meet next week, the courage to work together to finally provide health care to those who don’t have any, and a living wage so families can thrive rather than struggle.

Hep us figure out how to pay teachers what they deserve and give children an equal opportunity to get a college education.

Help us figure out the balance between economic opportunity and corporate gluttony.

We have tried to solve these problems ourselves but they are still there. We need your help.

Father, will you restore our moral standing in the world.

A lot of people don’t like us but that’s because they don’t know the heart of the average American.

Will you give us favor and forgiveness, along with our allies around the world.

Help us be an example of humility and strength once again.

Lastly, father, unify us.

Even in our diversity help us see how much we have in common.

And unify us not just in our ideas and in our sentiments—but in our actions, as we look around and figure out something we can do to help create an America even greater than the one we have come to cherish.

God we know that you are good.

Thank you for blessing us in so many ways as Americans.

I make these requests in the name of your son, Jesus, who gave his own life against the forces of injustice.

Let Him be our example.

Amen."

You can go to Donald Miller's website to see a video of the prayer.

prayer and creating

last Sunday we watched the Nooma video "Open," about prayer, then had some discussion. It was great. Here are some quotes and questions from the evening; The quotes are taken from Rob Bell's talk in the video. I might throw in some commentary.

Jesus took very seriously the creation poem, Genesis, that the Bible begins with. And in this creation poem God creates. But God creates things that are capable of creating more. God creates animals and plants and fish, but then empowers them to create more. And then, God creates people and gives them the ability to create more. So everything in creation is essentially unfinished. God leaves the world unfinished and invites people to take part in the ongoing creation of the world.

wow. I love this thought...it really echoes what we have been saying at Convergence--that as people made in God's image, we are created to create! We live out one of our primary purposes when we create. That's what art is all about!

God can handle what you're thinking.

God can handle how you're feeling.

God can handle what you're saying.

Prayer, if it's anything, is truth.

It's being honest with your maker.

Sometimes it seems (in church culture) that we get hung up on doing and saying the right things. We use a special language when we talk about and to God. I have some dear friends that always use "thou" and "thy" and "thee" when praying. It sounds nice, but it seems so distant or disconnected to me.

The times I feel closest to God are the times when I just let loose and get completely open and honest and real; pouring out all my junk and ugliness and honesty.

God's desire is that the divine energy that made the world would flow between us and in the process draw us closer together. Prayer is tapping in to the same energy that formed the universe. that's why people say that they can feel prayer. it's because we can. Praying connects us to the people and things we're praying for. Prayer enlarges our perspective. Praying gives us a bigger heart. Praying makes us feel things. Praying changes things but prayer changes us.

May your whole life be a prayer. And may you be honest with God as you become more and more open to your role in the ongoing creation of the world.

Speaking of ongoing creation, congratulations to Steve and Heather who are partnering with God in creating a new life, and a new addition to the Convergence family!

How I Spent My Summer “Vacation”

I feel like so much has been said already about my artist residency, that I'm tempted to stay quiet. But I did say that reflection is a key part of the artist's involvement in worship. As a member of the Convergence community, I feel both honored and obligated to reflect on the opportunity you all provided me.

As an artist in residence, I had a dual task: participate in a community project to benefit the life of the church, and use the dedicated "time off" to work on my own projects that have been hounding me. I began the summer with ambitious plans for my work at the church and my personal work. For the church I was going to do a space use plan, lecture and discussion series, and conceptual design for the sanctuary. For myself, I was going to attend a conference, write at least three papers and take at least two architecture licensing exams. And I was going to relax, get fit, go tubing, visit friends, and maybe brush up on my salsa skills. If I had written this down as I am now, I would have seen how impossible that list was for less than two months. (I'm just now recognizing it's too ambitious for a whole summer too!)

I began with the space use plan, which made recommendations about the use of rooms in the Potts Building (the Lab) and the main building. I wrote a nice little document only to realize at the end of the summer that it never got sent from my outbox. Fortunately, the process was a collaborative one and Lisa and Todd knew what my recommendations were and articulated this to the advisory team and others who were trying to figure out building use. As part of this project, I tried to learn new computer drawing skills. As a result, I have unfinished drawings that are now at the top of my short to-do list. So, alas, my work is not yet done. As for that conceptual design… Maybe in the winter or spring. J

The work I did finish was the lecture and discussion series for the Fueling Creative Convergence Project. It was incredibly exciting to put a great deal of my academic work to use in service of the church. The lectures affirmed to me the importance of theology within the local church and reignited my sense of humility and excitement at being equipped and able to do that task. The discussions stirred my soul. I was exhausted by them, but encouraged and inspired. As I continue to do my work, I will take your insights and stories with me. I will represent the struggles of artists in the church to the best of my abilities, knowing that they are not abstract ideas, but the lives many of you lead.

On a personal level, the summer was incredibly transformative. Soon after I arrived, I was struck with a professional identity crisis, wondering what if anything I can do as a job or career to support myself before I finish school. I attended the Americans for the Arts convention and found that there was real interest in how I connect art, design, and theology. I learned to speak about what I do in a non-church, non-academic context. This is quite an accomplishment, since I was afraid my church life and academic life were too disconnected from the world beyond its borders to have any practical relevance. I found out I was wrong. And I was reminded that there are Christians and those who are sympathetic to Christians in the arts management world. The convention provided me with lots of information about civic engagement through the arts, and it also gave me a chance to do some career development and networking. I came away with the idea that I CAN start a consulting business merging theology and design, and the experience was supplemented by the boot camp and coaching I did with Marga at the Entrepreneurship Academy for Artists.

I also wrote this summer. A lot. A flurry of activity previously reserved for the end of semesters only. I wrote papers, mini-memoirs, journal entries, personal statements, reading notes and cards to friends. I ventured into the world of blogging and found out it's not so bad.

The most transformative aspect of this summer, the part buried after all this other stuff, is that I rediscovered the beauty of relationship with God through Jesus. When I got to consider again the experience of baptism on my last Sunday with you all, I was overcome with emotion as saw the metaphor in new, profound ways. I rediscovered the meaning of blessing, seeing that I have been given not only grace and relationship with the God of the universe, but a spiritual legacy, a calling, and a fellowship with others that is indescribable in its sweetness.

After spending time in worship at Convergence and my previous church in Silver Spring, I am inspired to find a worshipping community near my California home. I confess that for the previous year, I had focused on the energy spent, the time required to be a vital part of a church, but I forgot about the joy that comes from connecting with others who share the bonds of fellowship in Christ. God worked through you all to remind me of that. After talking so much about the artist as prophet, I have a real desire to read again about the prophets in the Bible. From getting to know better people like Jay and Shae and Amy and Amanda who rely on their faith in real ways to enrich their lives and their art, I am learning to be open about the ways I can do the same. I've left this artist residency as a much more prayerful person. Lisa taught me how to confess to the God that forgives and the friends who support. Spending time with Lisa, Rita, Susan, Joanne and Pam reminded me how important real friendships are in times of chaos and confusion.

For all your prayers, kind words, and encouragement, I thank you all. I thank you especially for the part you had in helping me finish work I was too blocked to end and in helping me begin work I was too trepidations to approach. Convergence privileged me with the task of shaping a place which reflects our local church community and culture and also gave me a time and place to write.

The Beatitudes

This past Sunday we looked at the Beatitudes, which serve as a sort of introduction to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. The sermon reflects the heart of Jesus’ teaching—the thoughts and ideas and actions He was most concerned with.

We talked about reading this passage from three perspectives:

1. Those who heard Jesus’ messages directly—his disciples, and others who followed him and listened to his teaching. While Jesus connected with all kinds of people, the Gospel accounts make it clear that he sought out the marginalized, the oppressed, the poor, the persecuted. Jesus had a special compassion for outsiders. Much of the Sermon on the Mount, including the Beatitudes, seems to be directed at these people.

2. The people in our world today who are most like the people in Jesus’ original audience. While we (the western church) usually read the Bible as if it were written directly with us in mind, the truth is many of Jesus’ words communicate more clearly and better retain their original meaning among those who are marginalized in our time. While each of us suffer in ways, few of us in the west can understand the level of suffering that millions in our world live with.

Thousands of people, many children, die daily of malnutrition. Millions have AIDS, children are orphaned, millions don’t have any medical care…there is incredible suffering and mourning and injustice in our world, and very little of it actually impacts us.

3. We talked about what the sermon says to us. How are we to receive Jesus’ promises for blessing?

One point I made was that Jesus is not just promising to bless us, but he is asking us to use our wealth and power and ability to be a blessing to others. God has chosen to use His Church to bring blessing to a hurting world.

We need to be careful to not just read the Bible to see how God wants to bless us, but for how He wants us to join Him in blessing others.

At Convergence, our calling to bless others is lived out by supporting artists—being friends, listening, encouraging, buying art, attending shows and concerts and readings, exploring our own creativity so we can learn and connect with God and each other.

I also hope that we will begin to look for ways to use art and creativity to help those in our world who suffer far more than we do.

prayer for community

Here is the first part of a reading Amanda Vogel shared in worship tonight:

After growing up in a small college town surrounded by both our immediate families and a church that had seen us go from youth group members to youth group leaders, Abe and I graduated college, got married, and began our life as “adults.”  Two years ago, Abe accepted a job with Clark Construction and I decided to stop teaching 9^th graders to read and write and instead, pursue my own dream of reading and writing.  I was accepted that fall into American University’s MFA for Creative Writing program and we both started settling into our new life.

I’d always loved the start of a new school year—since the age of 5, my years had run from September-August rather than January to December.  I met a lot of new people and did a lot of reading and writing my first semester at graduate school.  For the most part, everyone was nice and we had many things in common, the greatest of which was our artist identities. I expected deep conversations about art and life, sitting around people’s living rooms with a glass of red wine in hand, waxing poetic.  But somehow, there was no depth in these friendships.  We talked about thinking and books occasionally, but mostly, it was parties and going out and gossiping.  In workshops, I read crazy stories where people did crazy things I’d never imagined doing or writing about.  I had to respect the content and look at the language and story.  When I tried to weave ideas about faith into my own stories, I didn’t get the same respect.  People even had the audacity to suggest getting rid of those ideas altogether. I felt like no one knew me and worse still, that if they did really know me, especially the Christian side of me, they wouldn’t actually like me.

At this point, we hadn’t started going to church in Virginia.  It was hard to replicate our church home and every church we tried seemed to be a one note demographic of thirty or forty-somethings with small children.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just not us.  We had also left our Pennsylvania church feeling a little defeated and used.  We weren’t too anxious to find more “stuff” to fill up our time.  And it was nice, having leisurely Sunday mornings with our puppies and some Starbuck’s.

I was tired and longing for connection.  I decided that I’d be more honest, open, and vulnerable with my friends at school, and share who I really am, in hopes of getting the same response.  I assumed other people were feeling the same disconnect that I was feeling.

But I was wrong.  I don’t want to judge these people, many of whom I still consider friends—it’s just that they were satisfied with what was there on the surface, relationships built on gossip and drinking and classes we had in common.  They’d never experienced authentic community.  To them, this was authentic, but to me, it was not.

Long story short, by the end of last year, I had hit rock bottom as far as relationships go.  My two closest friends stopped talking to me without reason and now, only talked to each other.  When I got up the guts to ask if something was wrong, willing to admit even to faults I hadn’t known I committed, I wasn’t given an answer.  I was hurt beyond words and wanted to drop out of my program. One semester left, but I wasn’t sure I would be able to deal with any more.

I didn’t say the words aloud, a prayer for community and wholeness and renewed faith in God and people—it was clearly a situation where the Spirit interceded with groans words could not express.  Because it was around this time that we received a post card in the mail for a block party being thrown by a little place called Convergence.  (You might have heard of it.)  All it took was seeing the words creative, community, and faith in the same place.  I knew it was a specific answer from God, a flashing sign that said, “Go. Here.”

So we met awesome people at the block party and more awesome people at the Sunday service.  I signed up for an Artist’s Way group and met even more awesome people and also started really believing that my identity as a writer and a Christian could coincide.  When Convergence advertised a writing space for rent, I jumped at the opportunity, and soon had a room of my own.  The past three weeks, I participated in the discussions and dinners led by Elise and learned so much and yes, got to know even more awesome people.  I am so thankful for Convergence.  It’s a community that makes me feel right at home, while also challenging me to step out of my comfort zones and do things I would normally be terrified of…like speaking at a service.

Tonight, because we are sharing communion together, I wanted to share a little piece of writing I’ve been working on.  I’m interested in spiritual memoir and have been writing a lot lately about my experiences of church and faith and how they’ve shaped me, from childhood until now.